. . . reaching toward God has made me more me and not less me. I was always afraid you would erase me. Instead, you are helping me to sketch me in.
Julia Cameron
Prayers from a Non-Believer
November: A Sense of Autonomy
How did it get to be the end of November already??
The year is just flying past, and the Artist’s Way chapter 11 is already inviting me to take a look back over how far I’ve come.
Before the year’s end I want to read through all my posts again, but in the meantime, I’ve considered how much change has occurred since January. Looking back, it’s actually quite a lot, although it didn’t seem so at the time – rather like not noticing the rings forming on a tree trunk.
I have a blog. (But you knew that.)
I write regularly. It started as morning pages and irregular blog posts; now I post regularly and have a whole day each week set aside for writing.
I take myself seriously as a writer. It isn’t just a hobby I do in my spare time when I feel like it.
I feel less anxious and guilt-ridden about Getting Things Done – still something I struggle with, but I’m learning to lighten up, without becoming totally irresponsible.
I am more generous with myself. Giving to others was a no-brainer, but with myself I played the “I bet I can carry on without that” game, instead of actually considering whether it was a good idea. For myself I had an automatic ‘no’. I was Scrooge.
I don’t mean to suggest that more is better and you should fulfil your every whim, but sometimes you lose more by going without than you gain. In the spirit of which, I had an enjoyable struggle with the AW exercises on self-nurture, over six months and during one week.
In the longer term, I plan to reward myself for finishing the current WIP draft with a new fountain pen (droooool). I also want to learn to crochet.
While I was off work sick, I managed to read nine Agatha Christie novels, three Ngaio Marshes, and two Patricia Wentworths. This was so relaxing and refreshing I had the brilliant idea of setting aside a day every now and again to do nothing at all but read. Perhaps once a month?
My nurturing week includes classic things like a movie or an icecream, and simple things I enjoy like having a nice sit-down afternoon tea, or going to a charity shop to try on hats. I may also buy a magazine – no magazine in particular – and go through it for pictures to put in my scrapbook.
The Artist’s Way also challenges us to reconsider our understanding of God, particularly in the area of creativity. I have realized lately that I need to learn to trust God more and trust his dreams for me.
After all – look how far he’s brought me already.
Exercise 5 invites us to list the ways we will continue to change as we allow our creativity to grow and flourish. My very scientific projections suggest that I will become more relaxed, more joyful, more enthusiastic, more energetic, more generous – and more productive.
A little scrap of joy to end: sometime in the last month someone somewhere entered the words “blancmange pen” into their search engine – and they found me. My life has not been in vain.
Until next week, whether life brings pens or blancmange,
Sinistra Inksteyne 
May: A Sense of Possibility
You cannot dream too big for God, I’ve recently been told.
The fifth chapter in The Artist’s Way is all about daring to dream. And I have most certainly been struggling with this.
There are lists to complete: what would I try if I weren’t too crazy? What would I love to do but aren’t allowed? I wish…
Not surprisingly, the DDJ showed up on a lot of these lists – or rather, the absence of the DDJ, along with reading all day and eating hot Vogels toast with butter. Also a writing room in the shape of a teapot. (I may need to think this one through a little more.)
I had to list twenty wishes, and the further I got the deeper and less specific they became: to be close to God, to live meaningfully, to be loving, to be joyful, to live creatively.
And then I had to list five grievances with God. That felt against the grain, but as she says, God can take it. The DDJ cast a long shadow there, too.
Then there was a great deal of image-collecting – images of what I’d do if I were 20 and rich, 65 and rich, could live other lives. This was quite fun, as I’ve mentioned.
Julia Cameron asks some rather probing questions about self-sabotage. Too often God offers us something and we demur, thinking if it seems too good to be true, it is – or it’s a trap.
“The question is ‘Are you self-destructive?’ Not ‘Do you appear self-destructive?’ And most definitely not ‘Are you nice to other people?'” (p. 99).
This is an important distinction. Not that being a writer (or any other kind of person) is an excuse for being unkind to others, but that others are responsible for their own lives and you are responsible for yours.
Putting other people’s priorities ahead of your own may make you out a really nice person, but it also means that what is important in your own life is neglected.
There is no credit in mowing your neighbour’s lawn if your own is threatening to take over your house.
So, taking responsibility for my own life, I had to list my favourite creative block, my payoff for staying blocked, and the person I blame for being blocked. (Uncomfortable self-scrutinisation, anyone?)
I soon decided my favourite block was tiredness. Then I had to draw a cartoon of myself “indulging in it”. Not being over-endowed with artistic ability, my cartoon was somewhat less elaborate than this:
The payoff was harder to figure out. The payoff for the DDJ is obvious – pay, leading to a roof over my head and food on the table. But what’s the payoff for being tired? Or rather, what’s the payoff for letting tiredness stop me writing?
It isn’t rest, because I find it very hard to rest when I know I should be doing something else. It might be the knowledge that I didn’t fail (because I didn’t try) but it feels like failure anyway.
Perhaps it’s avoiding poor-quality work. Or avoiding that feeling of facing the page and knowing I have nothing to give it. Perhaps it’s just the path of least resistance, inviting pity, framing myself as the victim. (Poor thing. She’s so tired.)
I wasn’t sure who I blamed – could be anyone from me to Capitalism. I don’t know that having someone to blame helps. Well, it might make you feel better (though I doubt it) but it doesn’t help you get out. And out is exactly what I want to get.
I still don’t know what lies before me. Rationally speaking, there is no more cause for hope than there was a month ago, or a month before that. And yet, the flame of hope is kindled in me again. A tiny little wavering blob on the wick of my soul, but there it is.
Don’t nobody breathe.